The office shimmered with an opulence that didn't breathe—it merely glittered and stared back with polished surfaces. The light filtering through the vast windows struck like silent applause on gold fixtures and ivory marble, but it was wasted on Bai Qi, who stood framed by that wealth like a boy bored at his own coronation.
His father sat in a chair that whispered status—a throne carved from leather and shadow, softened only by the fatigue curling behind his temple. The elder man pinched those temples now, fingers pressing the echo of a headache that was no longer just physical. Blue eyes, like pale gemstones dulled by years of disappointment, flicked toward his son.
Bai Qi's hair was slicked back, the sharp strands of his wolf-cut catching the sun like ink drawn over steel. His black business suit clung to him like a lover, every fold pristine, every thread threaded with arrogance. He looked like a monarch who had rejected his kingdom—too handsome for anyone's good, too wealthy to ever be told no.
"I'll step out for a moment," Bai Qi murmured, already adjusting the cuffs of his suit, the engagement ring glinting coldly on his finger like a star that had chosen to burn alone.
His father exhaled, slowly. Not a sigh—a surrender.
"Bai Qi," he said, low and tired, "You can't keep avoiding the world."
But the boy wasn't listening. He never really did.
Bai Qi tilted his head with that infuriating smirk—the kind that said I already know what you're going to say, and I've already decided I don't care.
Then, without another word, he turned.
The glass doors of the balcony opened with a whisper. Bai Qi stepped out into the wind like a man walking into a confession—one he had no intention of making. The city sprawled beneath him, tall and breathless, a mosaic of glass and smoke veins. Far below, cars moved like flickering embers in a dying hearth.
Inside, the older man leaned back, elbows heavy on armrests that cost more than most lives. His gaze stayed glued to the marble floor as though searching for the fault line that had cracked his son.
There was no use in shouting. Bai Qi was marble cut from another quarry—cold, rare, and uninterested in being shaped.
The lift chimed.
Inside it, Bai Qi adjusted his suit jacket once more, slow and elegant, like slipping into another lie. The mirrored walls caught his reflection and made him look infinite, unreachable. The smirk still danced at the corner of his lips.
He didn't belong in boardrooms or in portfolios. He belonged to something wilder. And whatever his father had tried to build—he was never going to stay inside it.
Bai Qi left the office without ceremony—without even the mercy of a backward glance.
The heavy doors, sleek and gold-trimmed, sighed shut behind him as if exhaling disappointment in his place. He walked down the polished corridor like a shadow learning how to flirt with the light—unhurried, unapologetic. The hush of the floor beneath his leather soles echoed faintly, a lullaby for the cold-hearted.
No goodbyes. No explanations.
Just the kind of silence that made wealth feel like a burden instead of a blessing.
He rolled his shoulders as he moved, arms stretching upward with the lazy confidence of a lion who had never been caged. "What a hard day," Bai Qi drawled, as if the weight of sitting on thrones of glass and steel had truly exhausted him. His voice dripped with sarcasm too casual to be bitter—an actor mocking the tragedy he refused to feel.
The air-conditioning kissed the sweatless back of his neck. His tie had loosened slightly, a snake shedding decorum, while the silver accents of his cufflinks flashed like tiny, controlled rebellions. Bai Qi looked every inch the businessman—until you noticed the smirk. That crooked, sleep-deprived grin that hinted at mischief far richer than any stock portfolio.
The corridor stretched before him like a runway carved for the gods of ambition.
And Bai Qi walked it as if he owned not just the building—but time itself.
Inside the lift, he leaned back with one hand in his pocket, the other smoothing his collar. The mirror threw his reflection back at him—sharp jawline, unruly strands of black ink hair, eyes that looked both alive and alarmingly distant. A devil in designer skin.
He clicked his tongue and chuckled to himself. "Hard day," he repeated under his breath, almost fondly now, as though he'd just wrestled demons instead of dodging board meetings.
The numbers on the elevator ticked down, down, as if the tower itself bowed to release him.
Outside that office, he wasn't someone's heir.
He wasn't someone's disappointment.
He was just Bai Qi—free, flawed, and gloriously uninterested in redemption.
The lift exhaled open.
And without waiting for the world's applause or its permission, he stepped out into the hush of the lobby, stretching again like a cat waking from a velvet nap.
Where he was going next didn't matter.
What mattered was that he had left.
And in his absence, the office behind him grew quieter than before—like a cathedral abandoned mid-prayer.
The corridor leading to the top floor was so quiet it felt like it had swallowed time. Fluorescent lights blinked above like tired stars. Shu Yao stood at the landing with a blue file pressed delicately to his chest, its corners slightly dog-eared, though not by neglect—rather, by reverence. The lift had nodded its refusal to his arrival, already claimed by someone descending, so he turned without a word and chose the stairs.
His footsteps echoed softly, like forgotten piano notes reverberating up the stairwell. He climbed—steadily, quietly—as if afraid the building itself might overhear him. His ponytail clung to the nape of his neck with the quiet loyalty of someone who had seen long hours. A few strands curled free, brushing his cheekbones like shadows, framing his face in tired elegance. His eyes—autumn-colored and glass-thin—were rimmed in sleepless hollows, the kind that spoke of a man who worked too much and slept too little.
Shu Yao reached the office door and hesitated. The plaque shimmered faintly in the filtered light, golden serif letters spelling out a name far heavier than its polished surface suggested.
He took a breath. Then another. His heart was a clenched-winged bird.
He knocked.
The voice that responded was not thunderous. It was weary. A tired man's sigh, lacquered in years of responsibility and a son who did not bend. "Come in," it said.
Shu Yao slipped inside like wind through a paper door and closed it behind him. The office was an ocean of order. Tall bookshelves marched against the walls, papers were stacked with the precision of a surgeon's tray, and behind the heavy desk sat the man who commanded the empire—Bai Qi's father.
Blond hair swept back like a lion subdued, sharp Germanic features cast in the mellow gold of the overhead chandelier. His ice-blue eyes lifted briefly, cutting through Shu Yao like a polished knife. Shu Yao flinched, then instinctively turned his head—not out of disobedience, but survival. Those eyes did not always feel human. They looked through people rather than at them.
Still, this man wasn't one to lash out without reason. Not when the boy in front of him was the company's quiet backbone. Shu Yao never disappointed. Not in formatting, not in discretion, not in discipline. He was soft-spoken competence stitched into human skin.
The older man said nothing for a while, merely skimmed the contents of the blue file with a sort of distracted grace. He didn't need to read it. Shu Yao's work was a litany of precision. But still, he flipped pages.
And Shu Yao stood still.
The silence between them thickened until it begged to be broken. Shu Yao lifted his chin—not fully, just enough to breathe.
"…Is something the matter, sir?"
The older man's eyes rose to meet him with the slow drag of a tide coming in. Shu Yao immediately regretted it. He turned his head again. Fear wasn't new. He had lived in its company long before this job.
But the boss leaned back, exhaling from a place far older than his lungs.
"That boy…" he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "He always thinks he can do whatever he wants."
There was no anger in his tone—just erosion. A father worn down by the cliffside winds of a stubborn child.
He glanced at Shu Yao again, softer this time. "He left. Didn't say where. Again."
Shu Yao said nothing, but his fingers trembled slightly .
"He's good," the man added. "Too good. Just like his mother. But Qing Yue's the only one he listens to."
Silence returned, folding itself back around them like a silk curtain.
But the old man's voice cut through once more.
"You're the only one he tolerates these days, Shu Yao."
That truth, spoken aloud, felt like a stone dropped into a well.
"I trust you," the boss finished, quietly. "Even if he doesn't say it, I think… he does"
And Shu Yao, whose whole body had been a tension wire pulled taut, bowed his head. Not out of shame. Out of the weight of quiet trust. Out of the ache of unspoken bonds.
And perhaps… out of something deeper. Something that hurt to name.
The room held a quiet that wasn't silence — it pulsed like a distant drum, hollow and slow. Shu Yao stood motionless, spine taut like a string drawn too tight. The soft overhead glow caught his autumn strand's like honey brown fluttering faintly with the rhythm of his shallow breaths. His ponytail was slightly loose, a few autumn strands grazing the sides of his face, weary as fallen leaves. His eyes — long, soft, and the color of dusk — did not meet the man across the room.
He had asked a question. Simple. Respectful.
"Is there anything you want me to handle"
And yet, the air thickened.
Bai Qi's father didn't answer at once. Instead, he watched. Not with cruelty — but with something slower, more deliberate. The kind of gaze that studied people like unfinished portraits. His hand came up, gliding along the line of his own jaw, as though tracing some thought he dared not speak aloud. The resemblance between father and son lived in his features — sharp and regal, carved like the kind of man born already seated in a throne. But while Bai Qi burned with fire, his father moved like smoke: quiet, enveloping, and impossible to predict.
His eyes followed Shu Yao — from delicate jaw to narrow shoulders, from fingers pale fingers to and the black shoes that had walked too many miles in silence. That body, slender and tired, had been shaped by diligence and restraint, not luxury.
And Shu Yao felt it — that gaze, that wordless weight pressing against his presence. It startled something inside him. He shifted a step back, knees suddenly untrustworthy, throat tight.
The older man rose slowly from his seat — not abruptly, not loudly — but the way a tide might stand to its full height before crashing. He was tall. Too tall. The kind of height that turned ceilings into whispers and made shadows stretch like arms. At 199 cm, he loomed like a pillar carved from evening itself. His figure moved with quiet power. suit that sculpted to imperial precision — and the scent of strong cologne held on him whispering wealth that followed him like memory.
His shadow spilled across Shu Yao's shoes.
"You," he said, voice measured, neither warm nor cold, "would be perfect for the campaign."
It landed like a thunderclap in a glass hall.
Shu Yao didn't lift his head — not entirely. His gaze dropped to the polished floor, uncertain, heart beating too quickly for logic. Campaign? What campaign? Why him?
His lips parted, unsure. "Sir… I—I don't understand."
There was a flicker then — in Bai Qi's father's gaze. Hope? Amusement? Regret? It was hard to say. But something human sparked behind that cool exterior. He was watching more than a worker now. He was watching potential.
Not just for business. Not just for skill.
But for power. Control. Beauty.
For something Shu Yao had no idea he'd been offering all along — simply by being himself.
And the door behind them remained closed.